She's not going to last long. She'll be voted out in two years.

They may just draw her out of a job,

...districts are redrawn every few years. The most bizarre district is the 10th District, which covers western lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn. That seat is currently held by Jerrold Nadler (with whom I went to high school!)

The 14th could be split up between the 6th, 15th, and 16th. But the redistricting may not even include the 14th.

We needed new folks, but not folks who will attack our own side.

Sometimes I like AOC's outspokenness, but she needs
to calm down about attacking other Dems unless they
do or say something that needs attacking.

in growing the "blue wave" in a way that got him a lot of respect from his colleagues.

The men at "Justice Democrats" are radicals, intrinsically, and virtually by definition, opposed to whatever mainstream Democrats want. I'm disappointed, though not surprised, that Ocasio is still hanging with them instead of distancing herself now that she's in DC. They're very media-savvy, though, that's their thing, and could hurt her if she tried, but at this point it seems likely she's all in.

Jeffries is a moderate liberal progressive Democrat. According to a Fox site, Jeffries describes himself as a “pragmatic progressive who can work with all of the ideological wings.”

Regarding the story spread by Intercept that Jeffries and Crowley conspired against Barbara Lee because she donated to Ocasio's campaign: "Lee added that it was completely false that she backed Ocasio-Cortez in her primary challenge against Crowley. “I didn’t even know he had a primary,” she told the outlet." She, like a number of other Democrats in congress, donated to Ocasio in the GE, $1000 in her case.

....the other board member is her campaign manager and now chief of staff.

That whole Intercept article is full of "alternative facts" - very little real truth involved. For one thing, that lunacy of connecting Lee's contribution to Cortez prompting Crowley's ire was pure BS, the contribution was made AFTER the primary. She did NOT back Cortez in her primary against Crowley.

Democrats generally don't back candidates who are running against incumbents in primaries.

Terrible sign for her for the future. Not that all the shakeups, with other original members leaving or purged, were terrible of course. Or unexpected. Radical/extremist groups typically eventually end up disintegrating after relatively short lifetimes of various internal disagreements.

I found her and Chakrabarti as the remaining board members on Ballotpedia as of 2/2018. At that time Alexandra Rojas was still treasurer, I think, and she's now executive director. Zack Exley, like Chakrabarti, is still with both JD and Brand New Congress.

JD's Corbin Trent is still there and is acting as her "spokesman." She angrily denied Politico's confidential-source report that they're going after member of the Democratic leadership, but Corbin reportedly acknowledged that Ocasio "and her allies" are nevertheless upset and "disappointed" with Jeffries over Lee. Politico, not surprisingly, is standing by its report.

Well, presumably Ocasio will return from her upstate NY "self care" break newly invigorated for battle, or whatever.

Here are the top three contributors to Justice Democrats:

375,533.13 ACTBLUE
40,729.74 BERNAL ALTO LLC*
33,630.66 ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ 2018

Although FEC shows they had receipts of over $2.6M, the detail report only shows slightly over $1.0M.

Total disbursements have been $2.3M, of which $605K has gone to Brand New Congress (26%!) and at least $1.25M has gone to salaries (28%)

*Bernal Alto LLC apparently no longer exists.

https://www.corporationwiki.com/p/2n1hln/bernal-alto-llc

"Bernal Alto LLC filed as a Domestic in the State of California and is no longer active. This corporate entity was filed approximately two years ago on Tuesday, March 8, 2016 as recorded in documents filed with California Secretary of State."

You tracked down those curious entries. That's terrific.

There are a lot more curious entries and details in those filings. One only needs to look for them.

It's just that yesterday you couldn't find them for some reason and now you did. And I think it's terrific.


Of course you still haven't bothered to explain what makes them so curious. But I suppose we can't have everything.

professional research skills. Bernal was in the same building as moveon.org, which arrived long before and is still there. Big nothing.

I did read that their first-formed PAC, Brand New Congress, took donations from both/any parties so wasn't eligible to use ActBlue. That was apparently a big part of why they formed Justice Democrats -- to be eligible to get donations through ActBlue, but like BNC still dedicated to purging and taking over the Democratic Party. (Ambitious little wingnuts.) Of course, they apparently had one of their passionate ideological splits as part of this as some of the ones who went to JD discovered they were opposed to trying to elect Republican candidates. In any case, presumably the ActBlue total is many donations arriving that route.

Btw, their big success since forming is Ocasio, and she's an accident. They have some IT and mass political marketing expertise, but reading about their short history of various quarrels and reformings reinforces my earlier evaluation that the national picture of their new power and prominence is fake and even that fake definitely not their own creation. No wonder JD's top people are now Ocasio employees.

Hi, Internet Research Agency, assume you're mining.

Presumably those are ones who didn't know they might want to make more than one donation for $199.

I'm more impressed with pols/groups who only accept small donations when they COULD get support from bigger donors. And, of course, when they're not wealthy enough to fund their own campaigns and don't mind doing it. That leaves a tiny handful, but Sanders wasn't one of them and these groups aren't. They're forced to rely on enthusiastic and well meaning but low-information donors. The exceptions of course would be malicious actors from our right and Russia's.

Crowley won the previous two elections by a similar amount that AOC won by last month.

The only way she'll lose is if somebody primaries her for the Democratic nomination.

....was re-elected as Chairman of the Queens County Democratic Party by a vote of 60-4.

AOC's has a limited shelf-life. She'll be replaced in two years. The only question that remains is WHO will it be to replace her? Many people believe that Crowley will easily defeat her now that people know more about AOC, have seen her in "action", and now that the novelty of it all is beginning to wear a bit thin.

All I'm trying to say is that I certainly hope that in the next two years she manages to actually accomplish something positive that benefits her constituents and which in turn benefits our nation.

...several times since I lived there, but I was about a mile from the current district line (in Flushing)

I still know people there, and many are already getting disgruntled with her tactics.

She was elected to represent the 14th District in QUEENS and the Bronx (she seems to overlook that about 3/4 of the District is in Queens), and they're seeing her doing many things that have nothing to do with their district. That's not making them happy.

I think our elected representatives should always put their constituents first, rather than their own careers or celebrity. It's difficult to determine exactly what her priorities are. I'm just saying that should be a given and that in my opinion is definitely applies to everyone. And if it's not abundantly clear that her constituents are her main priority, then we probably have a problem (or the beginnings of one at least).

This is an unnecessary and pointless distraction. We have more important issues to deal with and don't need to make other Democrats the enemy. She needs to step back and dial it down a notch or two.

and her enthusiasm, but this sort of thing is a real turn off. I think all the attention and publicity may have gone to her head. She might want to sit back and learn something from those who have walked the walk already.

the following ambiguous part in the OP:

"though she didn’t name names. But a person who has discussed the project with Ocasio-Cortez"

I really love these "named" sources

Based on "unnamed sources"?

Is there anything in this story that seems inconsistent with her past behavior?

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2018, 05:04 PM - Edit history (1)

headlines.

and yes, in general I have problems with unnamed sources, especially in this age of social media with the propaganda being dispersed through mediums such as Facebook and twitter

While I do recognize there are situations where unnamed sources are necessary for safety and other concerns, in this case I have no idea whether these sources are political adversaries of Representative Cortez or not.

Incidentally, I am not impressed by Representative Cortez up to now, so I am no fan of hers by any means, but my issues are with Politico, and their "yellow-journalism" behavior

we can't ignore that. I don't know if she'll respond in the next couple of days to clarify or correct politico, but really it should surprise no one.

Democratic nominee in 2016, and the Our Revolution embracing those individuals who have no remorse for their actions into their fold, I will never forget or forgive

It is not unlike the republicans who are now calling for bipartisanship. After the last two years of stealing through rightful SC appointment from President Obama, as far as I am concerned, f**k that

As for Representative Cortez, talk is cheap, and her record of campaigning against incumbent Democrats, speaks for itself. Dismal at best

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2018, 11:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Jeffries is well established in Brooklyn and won't be caught off guard by someone who won because only a few people showed up to vote.

AOC best stay in the Bronx and not meddle in Brooklyn as she just might get primaried herself.

Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director denied that she had already recruited an anti-Jeffries candidate.

“We’re not looking at recruiting people to run campaigns, we’re looking at building a congressional staff," said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent.

For some a little success makes for a monstrous ego.

Has she won any of the primary contests yet? Sharice Davids won her primary easily despite AOC. Gretchen Whitmer also won.

This is from the article cited in OP

You mentioned my new Governor Elect Gretchen Whitmer. Did AOC support someone else? I'm sure folks here in Michigan didn't even know AOC then.

....for which she said she wanted to "flip this district red"!

Last edited Tue Dec 18, 2018, 12:14 PM - Edit history (1)

...in the primaries - the opponents of Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), incumbent Congressman Lacy Clay (Missouri), and Sharice Davids (Kansas)

All three of them lost their primaries and the three above went on to win in the General Election.

If I were a candidate for office, I surely wouldn't want her or Justice Democrats to be supporting me. Justice Democrats endorsed 91 candidates in 2018, only 9 of them won (two or three were unopposed and several were in heavily Democratic districts) - that's 9%!

And while I like AOC that doesn't mean i would automatically support a primary challenger in this district. However I took note of this quote from an article cited above in this thread:

"Jeffries, a former state legislator who was first elected to Congress in 2012 after running an aggressive primary campaign against former Rep. Ed Towns, forcing him into retirement..."

If Jeffries is primaried by another Democrat for his seat in Congress, well that is what he himself seems to have done to win that seat in the first place. What goes around can come around, and the same of course is true for AOC. Some primary challenges have compelling arguments for that course of action. Others do not. They are in either case an integral part of the democratic process to be judged on by the merits in each individual case. And both the Judge and Jury for any primary is ultimately the voters.

For everyone's information, "Justice Democrats" has two board members, Cortez herself and Saikat Chakrabarti, who was her campaign manager and now her Chief of Staff.

If one looks at their FEC.gov filings, there are some curious entries for receipts and disbursements (along with Brand New Congress)

Such as?

You just wanted to hint at something sinister but can't back it up? Okay.

...you asked, I gave you the links to the data.

You said there were curious entries. The question was which ones do you find curious. You won't answer.

the conserva-Dems like Seth Moulton that challenged Pelosi?

Understand why she wants to get healthy, so she can lift poor people & immigrants up so they too can afford fresh facials & yoga

Justice Democrats have made Jeffries something of a target.

And yup, he won't be a pushover.

It's available on Amazon right next to all of Sanders' books:

I guess her district is really boring.

It comprises sections of both the Bronx (~ 1/4) and Queens (~ 3/4).

In the district is the very affluent City Island (where up until the 1980s ALL sails for America's Cup yachts were manufactured), the NYC prison on Riker's Island, the middle Queens neighborhoods of Astoria, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Corona, and LaGuardia Airport. It also includes the Hunts Point commercial area of the Bronx, as well as Soundview, Throggs Neck, Pelham Bay and others.

Total population is about 700,000.

Why, yes. YES, she is!

What's the cure for that?

...but wouldn’t her time be better spent finding vulnerable Republicans and working to get THEM voted out of office? We really don’t need this purity shit right now. We need R’s like Cathy McMorris Rogers to be sent home in defeat.

Is she afraid of the bigger fish?

...their targets have gone on to win their general elections.

....like her fellow newly-elected WOC Sharice Davids and Jahanna Hayes are doing.

I think if I lived in that district I would enter the 2020 primary against her. Does ANYONE know what this lady intends to do for the people of her district? Trying to overthrow anyone in the Democratic Party who isn't Sanders-approved won't help her district - and it may cause us to lose the House in 2020.

is her constant self-promotion and photo-ops for self-promotion without regard to the welfare of the party or her constituents.

Big slogans with paltry substance and a zeal to fight at every little perceived slight.

She reminds me of two candidates from 2016 in all those regards and one of them is POTUS.

Selfies and self promotion are the “new” way. If it isn’t something that can’t be bragged about on IG, FB, Twitter, or Tumblr did it really happen or was it really that good?

Kinda gross really.

From the article cited in the OP

....and look at some of these white, male corporate Democrats similar to Joe Crowley"

Do they mean "white male corporate Democrats" like Gretchen Whitmer and Sharice Davids? And what about Hakeen Jeffries?

Methinks they're a bit mixed up with the ethnicity and gender of the candidates they support. Thankfully their candidates are running at a 9% win rate for the year. Even a blind squirrel could do better than that.

Link to tweet

This wouldn't be any more "personal" than when she primaried Crowley, another dem in leadership, representing a liberal NYC district. Politico has an anonymous quote suggesting it's personal, but TPM should know better than to base any judgments on anonymous quotes in Politico.

our country needs more Democrats in office first, then we can work on getting more liberal Dems

...the article seems to be based on a single anonymous source, who is contradicted by a named source.

Looks like Politico is busy sowing dissention.

Link to tweet

this story today. Said it wasn't true and gossip.